The Night Writer - Night Writing

Monday, May 4, 2009

And back again

by The Night Writer

When I was younger the weddings I went to far outnumbered the funerals. That ratio is changing, it seems, to something like 50-50, but I'm hoping to get through this summer and fall with with a blaze of those more youthful days and something like a 3-to-1 wedding ratio. Sometime well into the future the ratio will skew inexorably to the more somber tones. This year, however, is off to a bright start as the funeral I attended last Friday was more like a party.

As I wrote in my last post, my grandmother Lizey passed away just short of being 102 years old. I returned to the family hometown for the service and to the same funeral home where I've attended four other family funerals. I knew this wasn't going to be the typical affair, however, when my brother called my cell from the visitation while I was still on the highway heading south, an hour and a half away. He was there with aunts, uncles and cousins and it sounded like there was a party going on in the background.

When I got there Grandma was laid out in peace, the only one it seemed like who wasn't laughing, hugging, telling stories. This has always been a loud branch of the family, and all the stories were familiar ones and I think she would have liked seeing everyone together again and hearing the same old tales...the kind of tales that make you start to laugh as soon as the first few words are out of the teller's mouth and you anticipate what's to come. In one corner my oldest uncle was holding forth and in another corner his oldest son was doing the same, perhaps even more expressively, the circle unbroken. Three of her four surviving children were there, almost all of the grandchildren, a handful of the great-grandchildren, and once I caught a glimpse of the great-great-grandchild whose mother had been about the same age the last time I had seen her. I was told that Grandma's remaining sons had decided that the last $100 of her estate was going to my own daughter, who marries later this month.

The funeral was the next day and the six grandsons were the pall-bearers. It had been a long while since the six of us — all of us within five years of age of each other — had been together but the elbowing, nudging and mild-horseplay seemed to pick up without missing a beat. The funeral director brought the six of us — Robbie, Roger, me, my brother, Kevin and Kent (who we call Fred) — together to run through the drill with us. After a few minutes she smiled and said, "We usually like to have the pall-bearers sit together in a group, but in your case I think we'll split you up." I told her that if she really wanted to get our attention she'd have to threaten to "beat the pee-waddin" out of us, and Grandma would understand. She allowed how she'd keep that in reserve.

The service was a sweet celebration. The wife of one of the great-grandkids sang two beautiful songs and the pastor from her life-long church, First Baptist, spoke of her great contributions the history and fellowship of the church and the rich heritage passed on into the lives of the family as he had witnessed over the previous 24 hours. Through the course of his brief talk he mentioned "First Baptist" about eight times. Later I told Aunt Sis that, given Grandma's age, I wasn't sure if the pastor had been referring to the church or to Lizey.

After the service the short procession moved out from the funeral home behind the hearse, heading through the drizzle for the Hodge-Enloe cemetery out on old highway UU. In the country, cemeteries are usually named after the families that founded them or the farms where they are located (often one and the same). Here's something else about the country: when a funeral procession passes by, everyone on either side of the road pulls over. In the city, even with a police escort, people crowd you, even cut through the line.

Even in the mist and drizzle that day the hills were a beautiful green as we made it out on the old road, gravel the last mile or so, and there was a fresh smell to the air. It's an old land, and an old cemetery, originally founded in 1889. I knew people with the same last names as those on the stones we walked past, carrying the casket, but I didn't know any of those...except that I did, if that makes sense to you.

When the short prayer and final reading were finished we turned and walked back across the rough, wet grass to our cars. There was rain, and there was gloom and there was the new bright green on the old hills behind, around and in front of us, and the smell of spring and renewal.

Posted on May 4, 2009. 5 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, April 9, 2009

On a day like today

by The Night Writer

My birthday was last week, and one of the presents I received was a collection of daily excerpts from the writings of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (thanks, Ben). Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945, only days before Hitler committed suicide and the arrival of allied troops in Berlin. This morning my book made note of this sad anniversary, and it reminded me of the post I did on this date back in 2005, which was also the week Pope John Paul II died. Bonhoeffer's words are timeless, mine much less so, but his always stir me so much I decided to re-run that post here again today.

"This is the end - but for me, the beginning of life." Those were not the words of Pope John Paul II, but of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed 60 years ago today by the Nazis in the closing days of World War II.

I thought of these words this week as the world honored the Pope and I listened to commentators in every media try to put their political spin on what a life of faith should look like. And when I thought of their words in the context of this anniversary, I could only shake my head at the subtleties of God and offer a bitter smile. Bitter at the foolishness and presumption, but a smile nonetheless in order to share in the laugh God must have been having. Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes. Supremely talented and perceptive, he saw spiritual truth in a clear light and threw himself into writing it down and vigorously living it out in total commitment to the lives of those around him, yet he was also capable of the loneliest touch of inner doubt. He was one of the earliest and most unyielding voices in opposition to Hitler as far back as 1933 and struggled to shine a light on Hitler's co-opting of the German church and to reconstruct Christian ethics.

Fearing for Bonhoeffer's life, his friends arranged a position for him in America ahead of the coming war, only to have him turn around and return to Germany almost immediately, saying:
I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.
A pacifist, he ultimately saw the need to try and "throw a spoke into the wheel" of the Nazi war machine and was arrested in 1943 and accused of being part of a plot to kill Hitler. Over the next two years Bonhoeffer wrote prodigiously and powerfully, cramming each paragraph with stunning clarity and revelation almost as if he sensed his time was short (he was 39 – younger than I am now – when he died). As he watched the German church crumble around him and embrace the unbiblical tenets of Nazism, he exhorted his followers and his country that obedience and belief were bound together, saying "Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who obeys, believes."

You can find out much more about his incredible and courageous story here on the pages hosted by the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum, but let me return to the present and the spirit of our age so much in evidence the past few weeks, and what Bonhoeffer might wryly refer to as another example of
"the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price."
What he meant was that we all too easily fall into iniquity by trying to determine for ourselves and by our own standards what pleases God. Today there is a lot of easy talk about spirituality as we boomers age and find that our first commandment – "Love thyself" – doesn’t sustain. Christian or otherwise we seek to set our own standards for what is "good enough," forgetting what it cost those who came before us to raise God’s standard. Journalist David Brooks calls it "building a house of obligation on a foundation of choice," or, "orthodoxy without obedience."

You can be thought to be spiritual merely for acknowledging there is a need for spirituality without admitting that you have any responsibility to live up to it in any way. It is a spirituality that honors teachers but not a Messiah. It is what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace" and described as being the greatest threat to the Church. The threat, however, wasn’t from the world but rather from within the Church.

The complacency of cheap grace allowed Nazism to subvert the gospel in the German church, and the spiritual complacency of America in the 50s and 60s germinated the seeds that bear so much bitter fruit in our culture today. (Btw, you might find it an interesting study to compare the origins, thinking and actions of the original Nazis with the origins, thinking and actions of those who are the first to label others as Nazis today.) It is this "cheap grace" with which we try to cover a multitude of sins while projecting a rich aura of tolerance and enlightenment. As Bonhoeffer wrote in his classic, "The Cost of Discipleship":

This is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without Church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without contrition. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of His son: 'ye were bought at a price,' and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
In what I have read of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and - though I am not a Catholic - what I have seen in the life of Pope John Paul II, I sense they both understood that their own lives were not too dear a price to pay for the sake of future generations. As Bonhoeffer wrote in one of his letters from prison:
"The ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation shall continue to live."
Notes: For anyone interested in gaining a deeper sense of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life and vision I highly recommend "The Cost of Discipleship" and "Letters and Papers from Prison" as a start (don't expect to rush right through these, however). "Ethics" and "Life Together" go further into what a thriving life in the spirit and in fellowship with others is about for those who want more. There are also two excellent DVDs available. Especially moving is "Hanged on a Twisted Cross," surprisingly and effectively narrated by Ed Asner and Mike Farrell, and the very polished "Bonhoeffer" from Martin Doblmeier.

One of the things that Bonhoeffer wrote while he was in prison was the heart-rending microcasm of despair and hope in the poem "Who Am I?" It's one that I've had posted on the wall of my office at work for years.

Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell’s confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I would walk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I would bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible, woe-begone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

Posted on April 9, 2009. 3 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The Depths of the Night

by The Night Writer

I was combing through my blog archives earlier looking for a study that I've previously cited because I want to use it in another post that I'm working on. In the process I came across a short piece that I wrote here back in 2005, my first year of blogging. It seemed especially appropriate for the present day when so many people appear to have so much to worry about. I'm re-running it here in the hope that it might help someone find a little peace and comfort.

A Beast in the Night

It's two a.m. and the beast slides in under the bedroom door while I'm sleeping, a darkness deeper than the dark. I feel his weight as he sits on my chest and the tingling sensation of the tips of his talons as he takes my head and turns it slightly to face him. "Let's talk," he hisses.

This implies conversation, but it is one-sided. Doom seems to be the theme, oppression the objective, but I'm not paying too much attention to specifics as I sort through and catalog the degrees of my awareness. The house is quiet and still. No strange lights from outside, no smell of smoke through the screened windows. My wife rests peacefully beside me. There is just this...thing, hunkering down, pressing on my thorax. My breathing seems shallow; does it have to be? I fill my lungs several times, deeply. Breathing is good, the weight remains. I experimentally try shifting my position.

"Ah-ah," says the beast, "does it hurt when I do this?"

Actually, no, nothing hurts. I easily move my arm and place my hand below my collarbone. The river courses deep and wide and steady beneath my fingertips in a familiar rhythm. My skin is cool and dry and yet I know the beast has found something, deep within. A tiny flame of fear, like a pilot light, and now he breathes on it and his very breath is combustible - the flame roars, seeking more fuel, wanting to consume me. In the light of day I hardly notice the steady but small flame; now in the dark every flicker seems to cast an ominous shadow. This is beyond reason, but reason I must: there is money in the bank, we are whole, the jobs are good, the basement will be dry again. I am fine and no weapon formed against us will prosper.

The beast is unimpressed, and answers each thought with a "But..." of his own, his own butt and haunches squeezing against my ribs. The debate goes on quietly for an hour. I should get up. I should get some water. I should change the scenery, but I feel trapped. "Yes...trapped," the beast says, "trapped, trapped, trapped." This is going nowhere. Reason is not sufficient, and argument is ineffective. If he won't listen to me, then I won't listen to him. I deliberately turn my mind to the old songs, the songs of deliverance and praise, I repeat them to myself, sometimes running verses together or in different order, simply using what comes to mind, from another pilot light, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, replacing fear with power, strength and a sound mind.

The darkness in the room changes perceptibly. It's nowhere near dawn, but it seems lighter somehow. Peace returns, if sleep does not. At 4:00 a.m. I'm aware that my wife is awake, lying quietly in the dark. I speak softly, "Are you awake?"

"Yes. Why are you?"

I tell her what happened. She draws closer, hooks one of her legs over one of mine, her arm brushes the last traces of the beast from my chest.

"I'm feeling better," I say.

This also reminds me of something else that I've written here before, a quote from Edwin Louis Cole: "Fear is the belief that something I cannot see will come to pass. Faith is the belief that something I cannot see will come to pass."

Which will you choose to believe?

I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust."...You shall not
be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence
that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
— Psalm 91: 2, 5-6

Posted on March 4, 2009. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Wondering Where the Lions Are

by The Night Writer

I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren't half as frightening as they were before
But I'm thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me...
— Bruce Cockburn, "Wondering Where the Lions Are"

I'm a few minutes from sleep yet, but this song comes to me tonight. It's been some week. On my last post, the one with the picture of a shark flying out of the water, Hayden asked, "Shark Week?" To which I replied, "Yes, and I'm wearing sealskin underwear."

Last Friday I had a meeting with our CEO who told me our business was heading into an interesting week. I'm guessing that most people's jobs, when they get "interesting" probably don't involve the media. My job, however, does and it turned out that two unrelated events were heading our way that the local and even national press would find hard to ignore. Neither were pleasant, and neither were a shock, but it was surprising for them to fall in such proximity to each other. My job as well is two-fold: messages for the media and for our employees — and only one of those two groups enjoys bad news.

One, of course, was layoffs. It was almost a relief for the crew, however, as folks had known it was coming and it had been stressful for many while waiting to find out how bad and how deep, while calculating one's own prospects to stay or go. Even if you were relatively safe it's hard not to ponder what you'd do while hurtling toward the inevitable. It was a sobering week, though our portion of the business was relatively unscathed. Still, we're a small group and even a few losses are felt; no one is nameless or faceless. Even if the cup passes you by it's hard not to think of the individuals and families involved. It does tend to focus you a bit, especially if you think, "What if it had been me?"

Same with riding in a crashing airplane. The news today of a US Airways jet taking off from LaGuardia and ending up in the Hudson River — miraculously without loss of life — is the type of story that you can't help but picture yourself belted in and, again, hurtling toward the inevitable, with only moments to review your decisions, regrets and priorities. Now there's no time to change anything, barely time to pray, and yet how heavy some choices must be as they seem to drag across your mind. "If I get out of this..." you might think. Then what? I thought, this afternoon after reading the news, of the time on that Iowa highway in the winter white-out when I moved to the left and the semi-truck careened through those on the right, taking others but not me. Changes were made, and here I am, the man I am today.

I had another chance. Those on the airplane today have another chance. Those in my office, whether staying or departing, each will have another chance, though it may come to us in different ways. Rather than be scary, or depressing, it becomes stimulating, even after the adrenaline fades and only clarity remains. And then the words of another Bruce Cockburn song come to my, and I can smile.

Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open your eyes
One day you're waiting for the axe to fall
And next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This vibrant skin this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

When you're lovers in a dangerous time...

We've got some daylight coming to us. It may take awhile, but it's coming. Be ready.

Posted on January 15, 2009. 2 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Catching the Ghost Train to Hawaii

by The Night Writer

It's six fargin' degrees below zero as I trundle to the light rail station tonight. I'm bundled up in "Big Blue", my below-the-knee length parka lined with down, thinsulate and cashmere, and a collar that zips up under my nose, and I've got on ear-muffs and a woolen hackers cap from Ireland. Big Blue also has a hood which I seldom use because I think hoods on coats make you look like you're in third grade, or like you're a dork, or a third-grade dork, which may be the dorkiest of all. In this cold, however, I have no shame and I also figure no one can recognize me with the hood pulled up over my cap and ear-muffs and fastened in front of my face anyway.

In this kind of weather I board at the LRT's terminus in the Warehouse District because there's almost always a train waiting there to start its run and it's nicer to wait in the train car rather than waiting for it a couple of blocks farther down the line. Tonight there is a train waiting, but when I try to get on the doors won't open. Then the driver speaks over the PA: "This train is not in service." It looks plenty serviceable to me, especially when it departs — empty — a few moments later. There is no other train in sight at the moment as the lights of the Ghost Train disappear toward the Nicollet Mall where it will no doubt tantalize other commuters before leaving them in the cold as well.

With the train's departure, however, I now have an unobstructed view of the front of a bar called Sneaky Pete's, immediately on the other side of the track. The front of the establishment features large plate glass windows and on one of the windows, positioned immediately under a neon Blue Moon Brewing Co. sign and hard up against the window, is a large flat-screen TV, facing the tracks. No one in the bar could possibly watch this TV, but people outside can. The TV is tuned to The Golf Channel, and it is showing scenes of PGA pros in their short-sleeve golf shirts practicing at Waialea Country Club in Hawaii for this week's Sony Open. I watch slack-jawed, with frost from my moustache thawing and dripping onto my lips, as Anthony Kim and Geoff Ogilvy and others roll puts across a High-Def green that could be called emerald green if emeralds took steroids, and just looking at it makes me wiggle my toes deep inside my mukluks.

Somehow the January wind starts to feel softer and, I swear, I think I can smell coconut oil wafting toward me on it. The angle of my shoulders, until now hunched up against my neck, drops by about six degrees and I loosen the hood and lower the zipper at my neck a couple of inches as I eye a bunker shot from a beautiful white sand hazard. No, wait, it's really a snow bank as the clanging bells of the approaching train take me out of my reverie.

Is it too early to get my clubs down out of the garage attic?

Posted on January 13, 2009. 3 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

One year on

by The Night Writer

I was wearing my dark charcoal-colored suit at church Sunday and at one point as I reached my left arm across my chest I could feel a stiff piece of paper in the inside pocket of the jacket. I didn't need to reach into the pocket to see what the strange weight over my heart was; I already knew it was the notes I had written to myself for delivering the eulogy at my father's funeral. The notes have been there every time I've worn the suit in the past year and I just haven't gotten around to taking them out.

My father died on October 29 last year so we didn't have to wait too long to start marking the significant passages: first Thanksgiving without him, first Christmas without him, first wedding anniversary, first golf season, first Father's Day, first birthday — all without him. The holidays early on weren't too weird. Sure, they were strange, but his passing was still so new and close to mind that we were still in the bubble of grief and relief that surrounds you in the aftermath of a wasting disease. The December wedding anniversary would have been their 51st and as the day passed it was amazing to think how blissfully unaware we were of what was in store while we celebrated the 50th.

The other times during the year I didn't dwell so much on the thoughts as they came, other than to take a deep breath. This past week, however, has seemed to crawl by and many times I have stopped to think, "last year at this time, I was answering my cell phone in the middle of an office party" or "at this time on this day last year I was in an airplane" or "I was at the hospital".

And on Wednesday it will be one year and I will think of the hectic day I spent 365 days ago trying to tie up enough loose ends at work, knowing that I was likely going to be gone for a few days. I will not be able to remember what it was that I was working on that was so important, but I will remember laying back in my recliner at home, wondering if I was ready (and not for the office) and I will think about the phone call that came that evening, and of Faith coming home and me not being able to say anything to her, and not having to say anything to her because she could just tell.

And I will think about pieces of paper in the breast pocket of a suitcoat, and how sometimes even a casual movement will remind me of a certain stiffness over my heart that is likely to remain awhile longer.

Related posts:

In My Father's House, Part 1
In My Father's House, Part 2
In My Father's House, Part 3
In My Father's House, Conclusion
Turning Toward the Mourning
The Knowing (April, 2005)

Posted on October 28, 2008. 5 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Name your price

by The Night Writer

“Right is still right, even if nobody is doing it. Wrong is still wrong, even if everybody is doing it.”
–- St. Augustine

Tuesday's post about the role and necessity of hope reminded me of something I wrote way back in the early days of this blog about having integrity. Having hope is an important part of being a person of character and integrity because it gives you a vision for the future and a picture of what you want to be like. One of the reasons that hopelessness, on the other hand, removes moral restraint is because a fatalistic outlook sees no benefit in the present for not taking the easiest path or pursuing the most gratifying action.

In my old post I used the story of a man I knew of whose hope -- and integrity -- didn't fail him in a time of great stress. It's a great illustration of how doing the right thing can not only bring peace but triumph and I hope it is an encouragement for all who read it. Here's the main part of the original piece:

Have you ever struggled to do the right thing on your job or in your business while it seemed like everyone else was getting ahead doing the wrong thing?

Several years ago I talked at length with a man by the name of Ronnie Carroll who had an amazing story. In the late '80s Ronnie owned a satellite TV dealership in Tallahassee, FL. This is a great business to be in in that part of Florida because it is almost impossible to get TV reception there unless you have a dish.

Ronnie was having a tough time, however, because he was the only dealer in the area who refused to sell illegal decoders that allowed folks to unscramble HBO and the like without having to pay a fee. His potential customers would hear his policy and go on down the road and buy their equipment from a dealer that would also sell them the pirate decoders.

For months Ronnie watched business go out the door. He eventually had to close his shop and try to operate his business from his home. Ronnie prayed throughout the winter, asking God to "judge his cause" and seeking direction on whether he should find another line of business.

That spring a couple of gentlemen from the FCC showed up at Ronnie's door. They said that Washington had made it a priority to crack down on illegal decoders and they were starting in his area. Their investigation had already shown that Ronnie was the only dealer in the area who wasn’t selling the devices and they wanted him to be in charge of collecting the pirate decoders. All dish owners were being told they had a 30-day grace period to turn in their outlaw decoders and pay Ronnie a $300 "disposal fee" or face prosecution. Simultaneously many of his one-time competitors were facing prosecution themselves and were going to find it hard to stay in business.

It also turned out that the company that made the bootleg devices also made legal decoders. Since the dishes wouldn’t work without some kind of decoder the FCC required the manufacturer to provide Ronnie with a line of credit to buy legal decoders to sell to the people turning in their outlaw equipment.

"Overnight," Ronnie said, "I suddenly had people crammed in my living room and lined up down my driveway to turn in their devices and buy new decoders and subscriptions. There were judges, lawyers and police officers in line. I bought a sign that said, 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,' and put it by my front door." Immediately Ronnie’s business went from barely surviving to grossing more than $80,000 a month. Several newspapers and television stations interviewed him and he shared his story with all he talked to. When I last talked to him years ago his business was still thriving.

One moral to this story is that God doesn’t move quickly: He moves suddenly. It may not look like anything is going on, but His blessing is already on the way and in one moment to the next everything can change. Heaven forbid that the moment right before that is when we give in. When the FCC rang Ronnie’s doorbell he no doubt thought it was a bill collector, and not the answer to his prayers. We need to expect God’s faithfulness, and don’t let our actions or attitudes succumb to what appears to be reality.

What is the price you put on your honesty and integrity? Will you sell it – like Esau – for some piddling and short-term gain? We live in a world full of hustlers, always trying to shade themselves a little edge here and there. The dismaying thing to me is not that this happens, but for what little amounts people are willing to trade their name and integrity. The thing about a path that is straight and narrow is that there are no corners we can cut and still stay on it.

Proverbs 22:1 says, "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." Temptation is always around to provide opportunity and justification; when exposed to the light, however, these justifications are shown to be flimsy and selfish. Likewise, we may not see the true value of our reputation until we ourselves are exposed, and by then it's too late. What we get never seems equal to what we give up. Indeed, it is "too late" the moment we cheat, not the moment we get caught.

Integrity is not something that can be taken away from us -– we can only give it away. We need to be careful that in our efforts to make a name for ourselves that we don’t end up giving that name away.

Posted on October 23, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

A little romance

by The Night Writer

Some have asked what kind of of writer I'd like to be, and my answer is, "Well compensated." Fact is, I'm still trying a few things out but there does seem to be a lucrative market for Romance fiction. Sure, I wouldn't want to put my real name on it (speaking as a guy who's blogged for almost four years under an alias), something dashing like, oh, Roman Teeque. Let's see...how hard can it be?

Rolf drew her to him. Though his embrace was tender, his arms around her were like the branches of the mightiest oak; she marvelled that the giant could be so gentle.

“I would do anything for you,” he breathed. His voice was sunlight through the trees, falling on her in a forest clearing. His scent was of exotic spices and of the tradewinds that had first brought him to her. She looked into the eyes that were as blue and cool as a spring-fed mountain lake. They were still waters, yet she could see the leviathan stirring in the depths, sense it rising in passion. Her lips parted almost of their own volition. But no…

She tossed her head, shaking her titian hair and put her hand to his broad chest, as if to push him away. Instead it lingered. Looking to her hand, she whispered, “Would you climb the highest mountain?”

“Aye,” he said, “and reach up and bring you back a star as well.”

“Would you swim to the bottom of the deepest sea?”

“Yes, and bring you the brightest pearl, though Neptune himself hold it in his briny hands.”

She felt a shiver from the very core of her being. “Would you...would you pick up your socks?”

“Actually,” he said, “Mom’s always done that for me.”

Dang, that's harder than I thought.

Posted on October 7, 2008. 4 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, August 11, 2008

Last week

by The Night Writer

Last week a friend of mine died of cancer, the second friend I've lost this summer and both too young.

Last week was also my great aunt Essie's funeral. She was the last of my grandfather's siblings and our last living connection to the early years of the last century. Alva, Elza, Bransford, Mamie, John and Essie, the beloved children of William and Fannie.

Last week I also weeded the garden and felt the puffy, aching arthritic pain in my left middle finger, which reminded me of my father and his twisted knuckles. His stone has now been set and I'll be able to see it next month when I go down there. He's in the row at Oak Hill in front of Essie and her husband, Raymond.

Last week I also went to lunch with the Reverend Mother, the Mall Diva, my young cousin DeShae, and Miss B., the young woman who works for me. The young ladies are all in their early to mid-20s and Miss B. and the Diva are both recently engaged. You can probably guess what the women were all talking about at lunch. In fact, I nearly had to guess because I could barely make it out in all the background clatter and noise of the busy restaurant. I followed along by watching the light and animation in all of their beautiful faces.

Last week I had the chance to feel old, and grouchy, and tired of the random inevitability of life, yet in the gleaming of an eye, the softness of a cheek, the lightness of laughter and the tossing of hair I found the renewing power of hope and dreams and even second-hand it will last me this week, and maybe longer.

It's a wonderful world.

Posted on August 11, 2008. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Friday, August 1, 2008

Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside

by The Night Writer

Mitch notes that it was 25 years ago today when Big Country's album "The Crossing" was released in the States. The big Top 40 hit from that album was the song "In a Big Country" ...

In a big country, dreams stay with you,
Like a lover's voice, fires the mountainside...
Stay alive..

Four years prior to that album coming out I had spent a semester in England, taking some classes and traveling the country as much as I could. The first time I heard "In a Big Country" (and every time since then) I thought of a conversation I had with a fellow American student after we'd been there for a couple of months. We both realized that one of the biggest things we missed was "the horizon" and the sense of how much land was beyond it. Even in the English country-side the horizon always seemed too close and you couldn't quite shake the feeling of being squeezed. As much as we missed good hamburgers and American sports, we found ourselves having longing thoughts of the Kansas interstate.

I don't think much about Kansas anymore, but the lines of the song have always stuck with me.

So take that look out of here it doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor -- come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted

As dark and obscure as they are, there's a certain "suck it up, wait it out" optimism underlying them. I've lived long enough now to have experienced several economic and political cycles, as well as times of feeling isolated and other times overwhelmed, and I think I've learned to hold onto the constants -- faith, the relationships you can count on, and the promise of another horizon and what may lay beyond.

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe
And see the sun in wintertime

Stay alive.

Posted on August 1, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Gone into the night

by The Night Writer

When my wife became a police chaplain we knew we could expect some tense calls in the middle of the night since chaplains are commonly called on for death notifications. We didn't expect that the first call she received would be for someone we know.

Joe was the kind of guy for whom guardrails were invented. Life had thrown him a few curves and he had a tendency to get a little wide through these at times, drifting out on the edges where the traction can be treacherous. The same age as me, he was whippet thin and had a look about his eyes that suggested a dog that had been kicked too many times. There was no doubt he had been.

Kick a dog, or a man, often enough and he can get mean. That wasn't Joe. There was still a level of optimism, trust and forgiveness in him despite all that he had been through. Some of it was the rub-your-neck admission of the things he knew he had brought on himself, and some of it was a faith that things were inevitably going to get better. He loved his wife, he loved his kids, he loved riding his motorcycle.

His father left home when Joe was two; he didn't see him again for more than 30 years. Once when he had had the opportunity and inclination to do the same thing he pointed his bike toward the open road, but couldn't, wouldn't do it. Bad company and bad choices had often been his reality, but there had also been a share of good choices when he said, "I'm turning around."

Including that most important time, that time when he looked into Hell and said, "I'm turning around."

Monday night was a lovely night for a ride, and one of the few things he could afford right now. He and a friend set out into the darkness and at some point he found one last, non-metaphorical guard rail. His shattered wrist watch said 12:15. Our phone rang not long after. Another chaplain had received the original call-out and gone to the house, but when he arrived Joe's wife had asked for Marjorie.

Today a wisp of a song played through my mind, over and over. An older song, sung by someone who shares my name, called "Midnight Wind".

There are dreams that fly in the midnight wind
Souls that cry in the midnight wind
Lovers who try in the midnight wind
You and I in the midnight wind

Sometimes...you can see, feel the edge coming. And sometimes it drops away from you without warning. You, and I, in the midnight wind.

Posted on June 25, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, May 19, 2008

Neither here nor there

by The Night Writer

Buffy Holt writes of a childhood memory:

Iaeger, West Virginia. Nineteen seventy nine. The old bus terminal that use to sit somewhere along the river bank. Maybe next to Sears & Roebuck? Maybe not. Maybe Sears & Roebuck came after it was already gone? I can’t remember. But I do remember the terminal; the diner it held. And it’s a memory from this diner that’s running away from me.

I keep trying to get my head around it. To see all the things I can already hear and smell and taste. But all I see is a plate. White. With a blue racing stripe around its edge.

The room smells of beef. The real kind. And of lettuce. It sounds like my grandfather. Loud and laughing. He’s sitting beside me. Telling a story. To men or to the air. I can’t see him; all I see is the plate. But he’s there. Just like the sun. Breaking through the windows, fracturing over hands and faces, lighting up the room.

It takes me back. Another bus terminal, another restaurant. Another childhood, mine. The summer after second grade, so what is that — 1966? My family and my mother's parents live in Indianapolis, but my grandfather, Pawpaw, has taken me on a road trip, just the two of us, back to his hometown — Cuba, Missouri. It's a sunny morning and we are sitting in the most exotic place I have ever been in in my whole life: The Midway.

The Midway is a restaurant, bar, hotel and the bus terminal for Crawford County, right smack in the middle of town. Route 66 runs east and west just outside the door, while Highway 19 intersects the Mother Road going north and south. The interstate is just a couple of miles away. People pass through here on their way to St. Louis or Chicago or to exotic ports of call such as Springfield, Little Rock or Tulsa. They stop here to change buses, get a bite to eat, maybe take a room and sleep. Pawpaw and I are sitting at a table in the middle of the large, green dining room with a group of men, including his brother. It's just us men in there. They are talking and smoking (L&M's for Pawpaw). I'm playing with the paper wrapper from a straw, folding it up like an accordion, then using the straw to drip a drop of water on it so I can watch the wrapper expand. The guys are talking about a bunch of people I don't know.

Some of the tables around us still have upside-down chairs set on top of them. Over on the counter by the cash register several pies are under a glass case. I am intoxicated by the thought that you can go over there and look at each pie, point at the one you like and the woman in the white uniform behind the counter will cut you a slice then and there. It's not just one kind of pie, take it or leave it, but cherry, apple, strawberry and lemon meringue. And you get to choose!

Along the far wall there are several pinball machines. I wander over, cautiously. There is a forbidden aura about them. I look over at the table, and no one is paying any attention to me. Cigarette smoke and dust motes hang in the bright sunlight as they tell their stories. One of the games looks like a baseball stadium. 5¢ is painted on the glass. I oh-so-casually take a nickel out of my pocket, from the handful of change Pawpaw had given me earlier in the day, and stand in front of the machine and push the little silver button. A trap door opens at the pitcher's mound and burps out a pinball. Pushing the big silver button causes an oversized bat to swing at the pinball, redirecting it through the infield toward targets that say "single", "double, "triple" or "out". If you're good enough or lucky enough you can send the ball up a little ramp to a target that says "homerun". If you get a hit, little metal base-runners pop up in the infield and follow a circular track around the bases. I make a lot of outs, but somehow cause a runner to make it all the way around to home plate. The bells on the machine literally ring up a run on the scoreboard, and it's loud. Pawpaw looks over at me and gives me a crooked smile and goes back to the conversation.

I finish the game and cross to the other side of the room to where racks of postcards are for sale. The first stand are all pictures of the Ozarks, or the St. Louis Arch. I move a little deeper in and find brightly colored cartoon cards. On one card a voluptuous women is standing waist-deep in water, wearing a bright yellow, polka-dot bikini top. She has a shocked look on her face. Beside her a hairy, fat man with a dumb look on his face is holding up a piece of bright yellow, polka-dot material and asking, "Did someone lose a hanky?" Oh man, this is hot stuff, and much more entertaining than dropping water on a straw wrapper! I read every card on every rack, laughing at the jokes that I get, trying to act as if I get it on the ones where I don't. Most of the humor is not that sophisticated. One card makes me laugh and I decide to buy it and mail it to my uncle back in Indianapolis. It's a cartoon of a hound-dog lifting his leg on some tobacco plants, with the caption, "Do you cigarettes taste funny lately?" I don't even know if my uncle smokes.

I am a boy in a man's world, trying to guess at context. Cigarette smoke, racy cards, pinball games, pie. It looks to me as if everything one needs is right here, but people are passing through. It's the Midway — they're between where they started and where they're going, neither here nor there yet, just going in stops and starts on their tracks like little metal men in a game. At the table someone tells a joke that I don't hear and everyone laughs.

Posted on May 19, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, April 3, 2008

At the turn

by The Night Writer

As you read this I will have completed my 50th year on this planet. Yes, I know, hard to believe – at least it is for me. Somehow in my mind’s eye I still kind of picture myself as I was in the 1980s, though that is a man my children never knew and my wife may even have a hard time remembering, which, truth be told, is probably a good thing for all concerned.

As friends and family members, especially the golfers, have reached this milestone in the past I have commonly bestowed upon them a cheerful, “Good luck on the back nine!” Now it is I turning toward the clubhouse. Though I have my share of fairways and bunkers ahead of me I realize that this isn’t necessarily the half-way point. Fifty doesn’t mean there’s a real-life 50-50 balance between the time I’ve lived and the time I have left. Believe me, I’ve worked with enough actuaries over the years to know about that.

Sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one — they couldn't come fast enough.

Thirty — “what the...?”

Forty — “now wait just a minute...”

Fifty. Fifty? Fifty.

Nevertheless I feel good, I feel strong. My blood pressure and cholesterol are low and everything else seems manageable. If I no longer swing a 20-pound post maul all day in the sun, or polish off 27 spare ribs at a sitting, I can still remember what each felt like and believe that I don’t do those things now simply because I’m old enough to know better.

Yet there it is – old enough. To know better. From this vantage point I can look back and see all the faces that helped me get here who are here no longer. And thanks to them, I see the young faces around me now and I can turn and look into the distance and imagine the even younger faces to come.

There's still time for some practice swings, though, and to work on my game. Yeah, the ol' backswing can't help but get longer, though the important thing now is the follow-through. I'm not familiar with all the holes I have left, but I know I've got a wise coach and caddy who has said he'll never leave or forsake me, so I'll take my time and enjoy the round for there's no sense in hurrying.

I do hear the Clubhouse is spectacular, though.

Posted on April 3, 2008. 4 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance

by The Night Writer

This evening was another late getaway away from the office in the dark, this time so late that all my favorite radio programs were already off the air for my "drive-time." Bummer. Plus it was cold. Damn cold. As I drove along an almost deserted street in the direction of St. Paul, I was surprised to see a train making it's way in the cold, dark night across the battered concrete bridge over Hennepin at 18th Avenue. Though it was a diesel engine, not steam, the frosty air nevertheless produced white clouds and in that moment I was suddenly transported — or "trains-ported" — into a black and white photo that could have been done by O. Winston Link himself. Not only that, I was transported back to another time in my life, and another time in our country's history. What I saw tonight looked very nearly like this, minus the swimmers:

My grandfather was kind of a nut about steam locomotives. He even worked for awhile as a fireman on a steam train during World War II, though that challenging experience apparently didn't sour him on the big engines. Some 25 years ago I happened to read an article about O. Winston Link, a photographer who had set out in the 1950s to capture in the disappearing trains of the Norfolk & Western line, the last steam-powered railroad in the U.S. Photographing trains presented more than a few technical problems, such as lighting. As Link said, "You can't move the sun, and you can't move the tracks, so you have to do something else to better light the engines." As a result he created a sequenced flash lighting system that he would painstakingly set out along the tracks hours in advance to get a shot with his 4 x 5 Graphic camera. Naturally, most of his shots were at night, creating some of the most evocative records of a bygone era. The article I read mentioned that a book of Link's N&W train photos, entitled "Ghost Trains", had been produced, and I knew instantly that I had to track down a copy for my grandfather.

This was way-back in the days before Amazon.com, or even much public awareness of the Internet. I followed some clues in the article, made some calls, wired some money and in a couple weeks' time I owned a handsome, half-tabloid sized paperback of Link's best photos. Plus — bonus! — a thin recording on vinyl of the sound of two steam trains plying their trade across the valley. Link was a gifted technician who had also been able to make several high-quality sound recordings of the locomotives that fascinated him so. My grandfather would insist on playing the floppy record for me, and I can see him sitting in his chair, his eyes closed, his head slightly cocked with that crooked grin of his as the trains chugged and hooted from his stereo. Something about the sound just suggested a cold, snowy night, and how good it felt to be warm and snug inside while our machines soldiered on.

Trains have always been about getting from one place to another. Sometimes it's a raw display of intimidating force, and other times a surprisingly delicate balance of momentum, mass and friction. As my grandfather learned over the course of many hard lessons, there was as much art as there was science to getting a steam locomotive to operate at its best and to come to your hand. And like grandfathers, you can easily take them for granted and then one day they're gone. Yes, trains are about taking you from one place to another, and sometimes you don't even need to get on board.

When my grandfather died, the only thing I asked for was the book.

Here are a couple of O. Winston Link's better known photos, but by all means visit the link above to view a slide show from this great American artist, or here to see even more images. Here's another interesting resource for where you can buy images and recordings.

Posted on February 20, 2008. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

A Balm in Gilead, part 3: children

by The Night Writer

The third in a series that is part writing exercise and part year-end reflection,
about the "balms" in my life, inspired by the book, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

In Gilead, the Rev. John Ames reflects back over a long life that, while full, did not include the opportunity to watch his children grow up. He lost his wife and infant daughter while still a young man and later, as an old man with a heart condition, knows he is unlikely to see the 7-year-old son of his much later marriage turn 8, let alone 28. As such he easily ascribes gracious expectations of their character and what they might have, or will have, accomplished. The memoir he is writing, in fact, is intended for his son to read after he has become a man, meaning that the wisdom and explanations in its pages will have largely been unavailable to the youth in his formative years.

Not that the Rev. Ames is naïve. He has watched, often helplessly, as his best friend's son has careened from one mischief and misadventure to another. That the man is also named after him further cements the empathetic anguish he feels for his friend's fatherly agony and embarrassment. Young Jack, like most of us, is a man of more conscience than character, with a fatalistic dread of his shortcomings. Both he and his namesake have a sincere desire to reach each other, but are constantly confounded by their own missteps and the other's misinterpretations.

The good reverend, however, never had the opportunity to convene a meeting in his parlor, to rest his own arms regally on the wide, wooden arms of his patriarchal chair, to fix a steely eye on an anxious young man across from him and, as I did, state the question, "What, good sir, are your intentions regarding our daughter?"

(Click here to continue reading Part 3.)

Posted on January 1, 2008. 2 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Saturday, December 29, 2007

A balm in Gilead, part 2: wife

by The Night Writer

The second in a series, part writing exercise and part year-end reflection,
about the "balms" in my life, inspired by the book, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

"We should talk more," she said, her bare foot lightly brushing mine. She's logical and practical in a way that some men say they wish women could be more like. There's wisdom and concern in her words, a concern that perhaps we're becoming too autonomous, rising and setting like the sun and the moon covering the same familiar ground but at different times, our orbits barely overlapping. Nevertheless, sometimes during the day, you can see the moon.

Earlier in the evening we had talked, sitting in big, comfy chairs in front of a too-hot fireplace at a local coffee shop. Then her motions had been gamine-quick, almost coltish as she reached across the small space between our chairs and stroked the arm of mine, or raised up to draw her legs underneath her, or raised her arms to take off her sweater when the fire became too uncomfortable even for her, the one who shivers almost non-stop from Labor Day to Memorial Day. She was telling me about her dreams, literally. Those fast-asleep dreams she had had recently, round and portentous, dripping with symbolism and still crystal-clear upon waking. To some extent they were also Dreams, having to do with what she wanted for the future, to pursue.

As for myself, the one who used to never be able to shut up, I had leaned back in my chair meditatively, parsing the symbols and conjuring context. Leaning back is something I've found myself doing more often the last few years; I'm not as concerned about letting silence into the conversation anymore, whereas before I often couldn't wait to careen in and even high-jack it, not daring to leave a space where someone else could take it away.

Now, later in the evening, when she says "We should talk more," it's not so much to say that the talking earlier was fun, but that we don't have as much fun as we used to have, or could have, and she sees the need to stay in practice. She looks ahead, imagines the inevitable empty nest. I imagine her considering the old buzzard sitting on the other side of that nest. What do the sun and the moon do once what has been your world goes away? "Ummm..." I say.

When we had first gone out I was nervous and had babbled, which I tend to do if I'm nervous. Fortunately, few things make me nervous anymore. Then, however, I had nearly blown it with my chatter, trying one conversational gambit after another looking for a favorable response, some traction. My best stories and jokes, my wittiest observations, littered the top of the table at the restaurant like dirty dishes. So I shut up, and things got better, because she had some things to say, too.

One of the things she said, some time a bit later, was, "Look, I don't want to lead you on. You're nice, but I believe God is preparing Mr. Right for me, and when he comes along, you're out of here."

Okay, so I have been nervous.

In Gilead the Reverend Ames reflects, with some wonder, over the circumstances that brought his young wife — and ultimately the son to whom he is writing — into his life. A widower who lost his first wife in childbirth and his infant daughter shortly thereafter, he had lived most of his adult life as an outside observer and counselor of the family dynamics taking place around him, covetously (he admits) watching the relationships that appeared to be denied to him, until these, too, overtook him.

I have only half-jokingly said that I was smart and got my trophy wife first. I didn't have to wait until old age, like Rev. Ames, to know the comfort of a wife and family. And it is a tangible balm.

My wife and I first met in April, 1986. We went on our first date in June. By late September we were engaged (though we didn't marry for another year). Once, as my she and I were clearly getting serious in our relationship, a concerned friend of mine (who had known me for years) drew her aside to urge caution, warning her of the dark moods that were known to come over me from time to time. These moods were not imagined, and during those times, I confess, I was not a good friend. I remember these moods well. Strange, I don't remember having one since I married.

Once, not too long ago, I was teasing her. "Oh, you're definitely high-maintenance," I said, citing how particular she is about the ingredients in the food we bring into the house, her taste in clothes, the way she likes things that concern her to be "just so." She was not amused, which suggests that there are still times when it is better for me to keep my mouth shut, especially if it gives me time to think. And as I thought about it I quickly realized that almost all the maintenance she requires is handled by her. She rises early for her physical and spiritual exercise, the burdens of selecting and preparing the foods we eat fall upon her, her fastidiousness in her appearance reflects well on both of us with little involvement from me. About all I have to do is avoid shrinking her jeans in the wash (difficult, because I like tight jeans on her) and bring her favorite towel up from the laundry on Saturday night and hang it on the rack above the bathroom radiator (I've also ceded this premium towel position to her). Further, since I am almost pathologically detail-averse, she manages the details that keep our household running smoothly, from balancing the checkbook, paying the bills and (usually) putting the things I need out where I can find them or won't forget them.

She does all of that, and somehow still desires my attention and conversation.

We should talk more.

Related Posts:
A Balm in Gilead, Part 1: Life and Death
A Balm in Gilead, Part 3: Children

Posted on December 29, 2007. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Thursday, December 27, 2007

A balm in Gilead, part 1: life and death

by The Night Writer

I'm just about finished reading one of the most profound and moving books I've come across in (at least) the last 10 years: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. In fact, the only works of fiction that have affected me as much as this book are Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale and Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams. Listing these three books in one paragraph makes me realize that, though they are very different, they all revolve around the nature of time and place, the nature of man and the nature —as Lightman/Einstein would put it — of "The Old One."

Gilead is set in the mid-1950s in Gilead, Iowa and is written as a letter from an elderly pastor to the young son who came to him very late in life and who he knows he will never get to see grow up and become a man. The pastor, Rev. John Ames, has lived his entire life in Gilead, pastoring the church his father pastored before him. Ames is, in fact, the third generation of preachers in his line. His grandfather was a firebrand abolitionist in Kansas, known to preach with a pistol stuck in his belt and thought to have ridden with John Brown and, perhaps, to have killed a federal soldier who was pursuing the Reverend's band of insurgents. He railed against the spiritual complacency of the "doughface" Christians who could tolerate slavery and warned of God's judgment on the nation as a result. He fought in the Civil War and lost an eye in the conflict.

Ames' father was the complete opposite, a dedicated pacifist who saw the 1918 Spanish Flu plague, in the midst of World War I, as God's judgment on a mad world. Nevertheless, the father took in the aged grandfather when he had no place to go, giving the young Ames a chance to observe their respective theologies and the dynamics between the men, even though the surest sign of a disagreement between them was their use of the title "Reverend" when addressing one another. Also factoring into this narrative are Ames' older, apostate, brother; Ames' lifelong best friend, Old Boughton, who is the pastor of the Presbyterian church in Gilead; and Old Boughton's prodigal son, John Ames Boughton (Jack), who was named after the narrator and who consumes a great deal of the old man's thoughts and fears as he lays out what little legacy he has to offer his seven-year-old son.

The plot, such as it is, progresses much as an afternoon float trip does, meandering slowly around bends and through shady places as Ames unwinds the story in such a way that you don't readily realize how much ground has been covered, while leaving you with a vague unease about what rapids or waterfalls might be ahead. I am continuously charmed by each page and awed at the grasp that the author, a woman, has on the inner-workings of a man's mind. I could have read the book in an afternoon, but I have purposely drawn out the pleasure by allocating myself only a few pages a day to read and ruminate upon.

Now, if my purpose in this post was to offer a book review, I'd hope that my words so far would inspire you to seek out the book yourself (indeed, I do). But that is not the purpose of this post, despite the paragraphs that have come before. Instead, the book has stirred something in my own inner voice, and in my mind, to record some of the thoughts I've had of late, some of which have come along of their own accord and some that have been brought forth by the book, and many that are a bit of both.

(Click here to see where this is going.)

Posted on December 27, 2007. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, November 12, 2007

In My Father's House, Conclusion

by The Night Writer

The house looked all too familiar. My sister and my uncles had removed all the appliances and equipment brought in over the past few months that had never seemed to fit. His chair, his bed, are now as they’ve always been. I know better than his dog, who wanders the house looking up quizzically and runs to the patio door when he thinks he hears someone, but standing in the family room I still half-expected to see him when I turned around, or when I heard a footstep in the kitchen.

What I wasn't expecting at all was to go into the grocery store or the gas station in the small town and see a black-bordered card by the cash register, announcing his passing. I’d forgotten how things were done in a small town where just about everybody knows everyone else. I’d seen, maybe, hundreds of these cards when I lived here but never pictured his name on them, let alone my own in the body copy. Later, driving some things over to the funeral home I was still taken aback to read his name and the times for the visitation and the funeral on the marquis facing the street.

My father passed away Monday night, October 29, due to ... what, exactly? It's kind of complicated, so I suppose you could say he died of "complications." Was it the lymphoma he'd been battling? The chemotherapy itself? The realization that living with the pain only meant yet another day of living with the pain?

I saw him wasting away, of course. In June. In September. Was it only last December that we had all been together and so happy? Thursday morning, October 25th, my mom called me at work (I'd taken to keeping my cell phone on and with me even in the office) from the hospital where he’d been for a week, fighting a kidney infection; where he'd had another torso scan to check on the progress of the cancer. There was to be a consultation with his oncologist the next day, could I be there? How could I not. Plain, but unspoken, was the thought that they would say the cancer was still spreading and there was nothing more they could do. I took an early morning flight Friday, and arrived at the hospital just moments after they’d moved him from his room into the ICU. When I caught up with him he had an oxygen mask covering the lower half of his face, the straps making his ears stick out even further, his head bald as a newborn’s. Despite the oxygen his whole body fought for each breath, filling and releasing in a series of rapid convulsions. I took his hand and could feel his pulse through his palm.

My mother, my brother, my mother's brother and I met with the oncologist. Good news: the cancer was stable, it had not spread further. Bad news: he had developed blood clots in his lungs from the chemo. This was dire. He might not live through the weekend. By the afternoon, however, he was better, breathing easier, able to talk, still able to understand. He thirsted, and I put the tiny sponge to his lips so he could drink. I, his first child, shared some news of his first grandchild, and the monitor showed his heart-rate spiking. “That … was … your … heart … then,” he said. Yes. Yes it was.

Saturday morning I held my phone to his ear so he could talk to my youngest daughter, Tiger Lilly; as always, he teased her a little. Saturday afternoon my brother and I picked up our sister at the airport, just 15 minutes from the hospital. Saturday evening my father and I said our good-byes. They were brief because there wasn't much left unsaid between us. Sunday morning I had an early flight back to St. Paul because there were things I had to do, first. Then calling my mother when I got home, hearing he had asked to be disconnected from everything except what was dripping into him for the pain. Monday evening my mother was at his bedside, talking on the phone to my sister back at the house, saying that he had been breathing much easier for the past five minutes and was resting peacefully, and then, as she said it, he stopped. “Say good-bye to your father,” she cried, thrusting the cellphone toward his ear as the nurse rushed in. Then the phone was ringing at my house, and once again I was on the road, toward a familiar place that was never going to be the same again.

********

In a time like this you really appreciate the “commune” of community: prayers and condolences come in from friends, co-workers and the blogging community just as the food showed up at my mom's house: hams, chili, soups, cakes, pies, more ham, doughnuts, fruit – the bread of life as friends and even acquaintances near and far stretch out their hands to hold you up. Some because they share your memories of the departed, all of them because they share the knowledge or the experience that this is a time common to all of us; this week it was you, last week or next week, them. I could feel the thoughts and prayers of those far away, nearly as tangibly as the line of those who brought the embrace of communal comfort: hug, pat, pat. Sometimes, three pats.

When I was younger I couldn't quite understand why people went to visitations or funerals. You only had a few moments with the family before moving on, and wasn't it hard for them to stand there having to greet all those people when they'd rather be off grieving somewhere in private? I've had a different understanding and appreciation, though, for the last ten years or so. "Paying your respects," always sounded like such a cliche until I experienced how important and comforting it was to see and hear from people what my father had meant to or done for them; there were a lot of friends and family of course, and many, many people I did not recognize.

The funeral was a "celebration of life," and several of my father's friends from the Masonic Lodge and/or the golf course shared moving and often hilarious stories. Men of a generation not known for crying wept openly nonetheless. With tight lips and throat I somehow kept it (mostly) together through the eulogy I offered, perhaps because in a way I had been preparing for it all my life. After we rode out to the cemetery my wife, an ordained minister and police chaplain, spoke the scripture and the prayer and then my oldest daughter stood in the bright sunlight beside the casket and on that hillside in the great, open air absolutely filled every ear (and I hope every heart) as she sang a cappella, an old hymn:

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Related posts:
In My Father's House, Part 1
In My Father's House, Part 2
In My Father's House, Part 3
Turning Toward the Mourning
Shifting the Sun

Posted on November 12, 2007. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

I don't know art, but I know what I like

by The Night Writer

Business took me over to the Walker Art Center today. Afterwards, since we'd parked the car over by the Parade Stadium parking lot, we decided to take a walk through the Sculpture Garden on the way back to our ride.

It wasn't the nicest day outside; gray skies, temperature around 40 and a light but cold wind. Nevertheless, there was something very appealing about walking down the paved lane toward the famous Spoon and Cherry bridge.

On a summer day, the view from the lane toward the sculpture is like unto a rich oil painting:

On a day like today the effect is very much pen and ink. In summer the leaves on the trees soften the lines and obscure the trunks of the trees. Today the trees looked like stark, straight columns converging on the sculpture, echoed in miniature by the parallel hand rails, as the red orb of the cherry became the focal point against the gray sky and the dull grass. The leaves were now dry, gold flakes pushed by the wind into a long ribbon that meandered the lane more or less in a diagonal.

I know the view is no accident. Someone with vision and precision laid these lines with precisely this effect in mind and I sense the subtle harmony of balance and perspective. Behind me, inside the Walker, are some beautiful works — and many that are tortured executions of an artist's self-absorption, intended to resonate only in some critical echo chamber, to be praised for bringing us face to face with some existential ugliness or dissonant reality or other such twaddle. In this moment outside, however, and in this light, there is a beauty and grace and a palpable, pervasive resonance, despite the bitterness of the day.

Or I suppose you could just say it was pretty.

Posted on November 6, 2007. 1 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Perfect weather

by The Night Writer

Crisp, sunny autumn days like last Saturday are great — and as refreshing as biting into a Honeycrisp apple, but there's a special seasonality to an overcast day in early fall like today.

This morning the sun rose but never shook off its blanket and the gray backdrop was the perfect canvas for the prima donna colors, helping the grass in my yard take on an extra-deep and lush green while the reds, yellows and oranges of the various leaves on the ground and still on the trees competed for attention. I enjoyed driving through my neighborhood, looking at the leaves that had fallen since last weekend's rakings and, like the children at the bus-stop, resplendent in their new jackets, just waiting.

On days like these it is hard to keep your eyes on the road, but even at that I was rewarded. As I pulled up behind the line of cars waiting to turn left off of the Ayd Mill Road I broke into smile when I recognized the autumnal glory of red taillights and flashing orange turn-signals in gleaming clarity that would not have been possible on a sunny day. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Posted on October 17, 2007. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Sunday, October 14, 2007

In My Father's House, Part 3

by The Night Writer

1989 was my first Father's Day as a dad myself (thanks, Mall Diva). As a first-timer that June I wrote a letter to my father that included the following:

There are things about growing up that can’t be explained to — or understood by — the emerging adult. At those times the elders can only say “Wait until you have kids of your own” to indicate the unseen forces and emotions that will one day come into play. It is an enigmatic, somewhat ominous, prophecy born of instinct, experience and intuition. Given enough words, it can be described but not experienced. Given enough experience, it no longer needs to be described.

The revelation of being a Father, to accept the title that has always belonged to someone else, is almost dizzying. The family armor, passed on for generations, has been taken off the wall and handed to you with your banner. It is your turn.

Some find their armor rusty and decrepit. Corroded by years of venom, its surface has been marred by each coat of blame and accusation they have applied over the years. These men will always find their armor ill-fitting and uncomfortable. Never having learned or cared where the weak points are, they don’t know what parts need to be reinforced, what parts need extra care, what parts need to be protected the most. They clank and creak into battle already spiritually defeated, blaming the previous owner, and scarcely able to defend themselves, let alone carry out their sacred charge. Some even abandon the field completely, leaving it (and the next generation) to the enemy!

Others will be blessed and even surprised to find their armor in good shape, and not nearly as big on them as they thought it would be. Oh, there’s a scratch here, a small dent there, but these only serve to reinforce the necessity of such gear. These men are properly outfitted and equipped, and where necessary they have taken it upon themselves to repair or replace whatever they see missing. Respect, and a good teacher, have kept the pieces oiled and in good working order.

I have been thinking about armor lately; thinking about how it's something worn on the outside as protection against the things that would pierce or cut us, the mortal thrust to our vitals from an external foe. But what about the poisoned blade that comes from inside?

Think about the wonderful design of our bodies; how they easily and automatically handle the vital chores of our survival: respiration, digestion, circulation, even healing and restoration. From the time we're in the womb our bodies perform countless tasks dedicated to our survival, including resisting infections and toxic interlopers. In today's vernacular, you could say our bodies "have our back." How cruel and crushing, then, for our closest friend and ally to turn on us, for our very own cells to go rogue, even to the point of using our own defenses against us.

And how quickly it can happen! The doctors estimate that from the time my father's mutinous lymphocytes first went over the wall to the time he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma (lymphoma in multiple locations above and below the diaphragm) was only about two months; this in a person who was undergoing nearly constant check-ups and monitoring due to a previous bout with prostate cancer and a heart-valve replacement a couple of years ago. What can you do?

Then again, maybe there is an internal armor and a toughness after all. Cancer is an insidious foe that, along with the measures used to combat it, strips away virtually every visible vestige of one's dignity. I know heart attacks can be devastating and life-changing and leave you weak as a baby, but at least they leave you with your hair. The chemo takes your hair and your appetite and nearly every illusion you have about being in control of your own body. When I was down to see my dad in June he still pretty much looked like himself, but the stress of the pain and the effects of the pain-killing medication caused him to throw up — much to his dismay. "I haven't thrown up in more than 30 years," he said. At one point when I went to see him in September he was throwing up every 30 minutes. Rather than lurching into the bathroom each time he had fashioned a bucket from a one-gallon plastic milk jug and used that. The first time I went in to assist my mother he was sitting up in bed, spitting up into the bucket. He was well past the point of feeling embarrassed, he just gave me a matter-of-fact look over the lip of the jug and went about his business.

He's lost his hair, and more that 40 pounds from a frame that can barely spare it. He's been poked with needles and IVs so many times the nurses can barely find a vein that won't collapse and there's scarcely a bodily function he can perform without an audience, yet he still jokes with the nurses even if his voice sometimes sounds more like his 100-year-old mother's than his own. He struggles to swallow his food, and to keep it down even when he does, yet he's drawing sustenance from his will and a determination not to give up no matter what fresh hell the day brings, and doing it with a grace that I never would have expected in him.

We think of armor as being made of metal. Apparently, it has more to do with mettle.

Posted on October 14, 2007. 2 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

In My Father's House, Part 2

by The Night Writer

A childhood memory: waking up in the pre-dawn winter hours to the muffled thrumming of my father’s car warming up in the driveway. In my mind I can picture the clouds of crystalline exhaust illuminated by the back porch light. I would lie snug in my bed and listen to the sounds of my father preparing to go to work: his step (the heaviest in the house) in the hallway, the jingle of the dozen or so keys on the big ring on his belt, the clink of a coffee cup being set down on the counter; finally the closing of the back door to mark his passing. It was familiar and unremarkable, and I would go back to sleep.

When I awoke again my mind was filled with my own thoughts and plans for the day. In this time my father owned his own business and was rarely home for supper. My brother and sister and I would eat with our mother, and go about our evening routine. I would often be in bed again when I heard him return. There would be the sounds of my mother frying him a steak, and of talking; their voices distinct, but not the words. Sometimes the tone was obviously my mother reciting the sins of the day, and if they were heinous enough, we would be summoned from our beds for the promised retribution of When Our Father Gets Home.

As a father now myself, I understand how this had to have been as unpleasant for him as it was for us.

During this time our father was a seldom seen force in our lives, operating outside our understanding, toward ends unknown. We would see him mostly on Sundays, and there was a feeling of awkwardness as if none of us were quite certain about how we should act. And yet there was always food on the table, a comfortable house, and clothes for every season, even though we gave little thought, or saw little connection, to how these things came to be.

It wasn’t until I was 11 or 12 and old enough to go to work with my father that I really started to get to know him, and learn what a just and wonderful man he was. I admit he never seemed to be at a loss for things for me to do: pick up rocks and litter, sweep the drive, clean the restrooms for the rest of the workers and the guests. As I learned more about how to please him, my responsibilities and privileges grew. I came to know the special feeling of joining him in the early morning while everyone else was asleep as we got ready to go to “our” work.

(Continue reading Part 2)

Posted on October 10, 2007. 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Monday, October 8, 2007

In My Father's House, Part 1

by The Night Writer

The day before Father's Day this year I happened to be parked at the far pumps at a BP gas station and convenience store in Ottumwa, Iowa, filling up. As I squeegeed my windshield I heard a commotion behind me and turned to see a large pickup rock to a sudden stop in front of the convenience store. It wasn't the sound of the approaching truck that had caught my attention, however, but the not-so-muffled shouting coming from inside the cab.

A man was yelling at a boy, waving his arms and perhaps throwing some litter around. Outside of several f-bombs it was hard to make out what was being said, but it was a one-sided exposition. I casually and automatically looked away as the man got out of the truck, continuing the barrage. "Happy Father's Day," I thought, as he stalked off into the convenience store, my own thoughts suddenly dizzy in my head. A couple of minutes later I hung the nozzle back on the pump, and made my way toward the store as well. I had to walk in front of the truck on my way. Not wanting to embarrass the young man further I glanced sideways at him through the windshield and was impressed to see that, though tears were rolling down his cheeks, he had his head up. I turned my head fully toward him, made eye-contact, and winked.

I hope what was communicated was encouragement, a friendly contact and a silent assurance that things will get better.

Yeah, I've been there. My own father's temper has been known to be ... expressive. I absorbed my share of it growing up, though I can't remember now any particular incident or cause, no more than I remember a particular thunderstorm. I mean, I know there were thunderstorms when I was growing up but I don't remember any specific ones. What does come back to me now, however, is a time when I was in second or third grade and my dad was trying to get his business launched, working long hours away from the house. He must have felt some need to spend some time with me, however, and out of the blue one Sunday afternoon he took me for a special treat: to play miniature golf. I don't remember where my brother and sister were, but I'm sure I was delighted that I was the only one to get this attention. The problem was, it was an especially hot day and the putt-putt course was laid out on what seemed like acres of cement, none of which could have been very far from my head given my height then.

I don't know how long we played, but at some point I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. I didn't know heat stroke from heat rash then but I was definitely sick and my dad was definitely scared. He got me off of the premises, carrying me to his car and laying me down with a wet handkerchief on my face. We went home and he put me in front of the window a/c unit until I recovered. I'm sure he felt bad that his great plan to spend some time with his son had almost ended in disaster; I know I did, though for different reasons. I remember the concern on his face, however, at a time when I might have expected him to be angry.

Another time when he could have gotten angry and didn't was when I was 16 or 17 and we were anchoring a mobile home. He was steadying the 4-foot anchoring rods in their crosspiece while I swung the 8-lb. sledge to drive them in. At one point I accidentally clipped the upper part of his ear with the handle of the hammer as I repositioned myself for another swing. It drew blood but no explosion, though I'm sure he didn't like it. (Which also reminds me of a time when we were trying to level and anchor a trailer on the side of a steep hill near Steelville, Missouri. He wouldn't let me get under the unit as he delicately worked with hydraulic jacks, concrete blocks and wooden shims along the underframe. Just as he was placing a shim and lightly tapping it into place with a hammer a sonic-boom rocked the valley. I had heard of greased lightning up until that time, but I had never seen it until I saw him crab sideways out from under that trailer!)

Family lore has it that my father's father was known for a volatile temper. I saw a little of it growing up, but other than a couple of years when he lived near us I wasn't around him that much. Most of the accounts are from stories my uncles would tell at family gatherings. Most folks today will accept that a temper can be passed on to each generation whether by nature or nurture or a spiritual manifestation. Whichever, my father received his inheritance and passed it on. My brother and I heat up about as quickly as he did, though expressing it is an indulgence that I have tried hard to limit and thankfully haven't seen it in my children.

Anyway, I survived with minimal trauma and with greater memories such as the ones I've just described taking precedence. I don't know what the future holds for the young man and father I saw in Iowa, but I hope the incident was an isolated one that one day will be acknowledged yet set aside in favor of ones happier and more plentiful, for both their sakes.

As I entered the store I tried to think of something to say to the father; something encouraging, in just a few words, that might give him a different perspective. I could come up with nothing in the moment and even now, months later, I still can't think of the perfect sentence to calm the situation and allay my own fears. My fears were not for the future of that family, or that whatever I said might provoke an additional outburst. My concern was that in speaking to that father I might end up telling him why I was in Iowa that day and telling him where I was going and why, and that neither of us would want to hear that outloud.

You see, the reason I was standing in that gas-station was because my daughters and I were on our way to Missouri to see my dad as a Father's Day surprise. He had been feeling sick for weeks and experiencing a lot of back pain. Though we could barely breathe the word, our family was concerned that cancer had returned. Thoughts of the past and the future had been folding themselves constantly in my mind during the drive. If it was cancer, would he need chemo? If he needed chemo, would he put himself through that ordeal or — after what had happened to friends of his — say, "To hell with that"?

He was surprised and pleased to see us when we got there, twisting stiffly in his swivel chair to see what the dog was barking at. He got up for hugs all around, his golf shirt stretching a little around the bit of gut his cardiologist had been after him to lose. He didn't look much different since I had seen him back in December, but I could tell he was in pain from a fractured vertebrae and the subsequent bone biopsy he'd had the day before. We talked some over the weekend about the pain and the possible implications, but tried to keep things light and positive. The test results would be back on Tuesday, I was heading back on Monday.

The girls and I stood around him and prayed before we left. He acquiesced, but it felt to me as if I was throwing a saddle on a newly busted bronco for the first time. I have personally seen and experienced great, even miraculous, results from prayer, and have prayed many times for people, standing on scripture and faith, the words usually come easily as I follow the leading that comes. This was harder, though; so much I wanted to pour into it, so little that seemed to want to come out. Through the long drive home I took some comfort from the knowledge that it is the power in the words, not the eloquence that makes the difference. We arrived home Monday night.

Tuesday brought the word. Lymphoma, stage four. He would start chemo on Wednesday, no fuss. "Let's get it done."

Posted on October 8, 2007. 4 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What I did on my "summer" vacation

by The Night Writer

I awoke easily last Sunday morning to the tramping sound of Lake Superior shoving repeatedly against the shore just 80 feet from the screened door of the cottage. It had been the same sound I had fallen asleep to the night before, and I looked at the clock and was half-stunned to realize that for the first time in months I had just spent eight glorious, uninterrupted hours dead to the world.

I also noted with some relief that the mental checklist of the day’s chores, challenges and deadlines was not, for the first time in months, floating just behind my eyes, trying to push them open. Instead the invisible slate was hanging back, humble and nearly bare like the marquis of a Dairy Queen closed for the season, the only lettering in my head a casual scrawl: Grand Marais, On Vacation.

Without much urgency I chalked the most pressing agenda item for the day: Breakfast.

On Saturday my family and I had driven up to the North Shore from the Cities. I hadn't been able to get away much this past summer and had had to miss some of the picnics and canoe trips my wife and daughters had already taken, so I was really ready for this trip. By coming this late in the season, and before the fall leaves were at their peak, we had enjoyed a less crowded road, though the cars were still packed as thick as flies around a sweet roll at Tobies in Hinckley. Instead we had a picnic lunch outside the Hinckley Fire Museum and then kept bearing north to Duluth and the southwestern tip of the great lake, whereupon we hugged its sprawling shore as we passed the familiar totems of our trip: Two Harbors, Castle Danger, Gooseberry Falls, the Split Rock Lighthouse. We turned off at Palisade Head in order to walk along the the towering cliffs that for so long have told the mighty lake, “This far and no further” (a testament that even a natural balance isn’t necessarily an easy one). Driving up the steep, narrow road up to the parking lot at the rocky edge of Palisade, the “I ride ATVs and I Vote” bumper sticker on our borrowed mini-van contrasted nicely with the many “Wellstone!” stickers already there. After some clambering around and the usual jelly-kneed sensations we were back on Hwy. 61, with the hills, woods and great root beer rivers of the Superior National Forest on our left, the lake always on our right, past the Tettegouche State Park, and the Temperance and Cascade Rivers, crashing down the gorges and over the rocks in a great foamy rush to keep their standing appointments with Gitchee-Gumee. Then we were at last into Grand Marais, and still a bit further, past 5-Mile Rock and to the Croftville Road Cottages.

After that my wife prepared some lamb stew in our kitchen for dinner. Then, in the gathering twilight, a campfire and toasted marshmallows as we watched the bats chase down the remaining insects of the season and finally into bed, the tramping sound in my ears of Superior shoving against the shore, just 80 feet from the screened door of my cottage.

Our cottage. It was beautifully remodeled and very comfortable with two gas fireplaces, and at a great price.

Sunday, when breakfast had been duly scratched off of the to-do list, we went back into Grand Marais, parking in a lot beside the harbor where I could see a yellow sailboat moored 50 yards from shore, crisp in the morning sun and nodding to us on the gentle waves. We walked through the small town, browsing at the many gift shops and quaint attractions. I’m sure that the Indians, and later the first explorers, trappers and lumbermen through this area, would be stupefied at the many opportunities available today to partake of the comforts of pie and caffeine.

While the girls admired jewelry and scarves, beneath rustically-lettered signs informing them that they were under video surveillance, I scouted around and discovered the apparently sole location where that afternoon’s Vikings-Lions football game could be seen. That was still several hours away, however, so we got back in the van and headed north to the Devil’s Kettle Falls and State Park. We “tail-gated” with chicken- and egg-salad sandwiches from our cooler before setting off on the somewhat stiff 1.4 mile hike to the falls. The path is relatively wide and well-maintained, but persistently uphill and even in the mild temperatures we got pretty warm. There are some very nice look-outs along the way, however, and we admired the cascading river and the vistas of trees still mostly green but already seasoned with explosive swathes of red and orange.

After steady climbing we were then at a series of wooden steps and railings leading us down to the titular “Devil’s Kettle.” The relief in the descent was greatly mitigated by the knowledge that every one of the 179 steps would have to be negotiated in reverse order and direction on our way back. On the way back up, however, we did get to see an eagle circling directly above us (though at first I thought it might be a buzzard). The girls dropped me back at the bar in time for the game and then they headed for the bay with their sketch books.

I thought the bar would have more than a few tourists inside to catch the game, but it was all locals who knew each other and didn't seem to mind my presence. It was a congenial, cozy group. One of the patrons sitting at the bar, who was wearing open-toed flip-flop sandals, apparently felt so at home that he started picking at his toenails, dropping his scrapings on the carpet. Well, I wasn't planning on eating anyway, as I only wanted to watch the game, but I ordered a draft Bock for medicinal purposes. The pedicurist and one of the female customers were soon intent on a discussion about why the TV kept showing a "DET 6, MIN 3" score from time to time in the upper corner of the screen, especially when the current score was Lions 7, Vikings 0. I cautiously submitted for their consideration that the strange score might, in fact, be the score of the Tigers-Twins game that was also going on that afternoon. Their reaction gave credence to the adage that the definition of "expert" means someone who lives more than 50 miles away. A little later I felt comfortable enough to take sides between two groups disputing the interpretation of a certain play. One of the members of the "other" group, an older gentleman, loudly insisted his version was correct because he "used to play this game." To which I replied, "And did they wear helmets back then?" Fortunately, this was well received by the group as a whole and the gentleman in particular, and while I was on a "one-beer-per-half" pace, a third Bock appeared in front of me in the fourth quarter.

I'd nursed my way through about a third of it with about a minute and a half to go in the game, when my wife pulled up in the parking lot and sent the kids in to get me. "Paw," they said, "Ma says it's time to come home!" Well, actually, they didn't say anything like that, but they did let me know that they and my supper were waiting for me down the street a little ways at a place called the Crooked Spoon. Therefore, even though the game looked to be heading for overtime, I settled my tab and left after Longwell's kick clanked off the upright. Besides, with two 16-oz. glasses of beer, plus a little bit more, in me I was starting to feel a little tingly in my extremities. A brisk walk in the cool evening air was the perfect remedy, however, and I arrived at the restaurant hungry and invigorated. The Crooked Spoon had been recommended to us by friends who admired its sophisticated menu. I believe I acquitted myself with grace and aplomb while dining — an opinion that the Mall Diva threatens to dispute in a post of her very own if I'm not careful (or she gets the slightest encouragement from anyone).

Whatever. The food was absolutely delicious, from the melted cheese and spinach appetizer, through the pulled pork with beans and greens soup and the barbequed ribs, and including two delectable pieces of carrot cake — each the size of some of the boulders we'd seen along the shore earlier — that my family fell upon with flashing cutlery like ninjas. We left the restaurant well satisfied with the meal and the day, but even more "dessert" was in store: an enormous crescent moon, looking so perfect that if you saw it in a movie you'd think it was a painted backdrop for sure, had risen over the bay and was reflecting a golden beam across the still waters directly at us, and the beam followed us nearly all the way to the car.

Yep, it had been a great day.

Posted on September 18, 2007. 7 Comments 0 Trackbacks

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Thunder and lightning

by The Night Writer

I often think about how much I enjoy living indoors. Usually these thoughts come on Monday mornings when I try to remember why I'm getting out of bed. Coincidentally, the thought also came to me as I lay in bed last night, absorbing one of the most unusual thunderstorms I've ever experienced.

The typical Minnesota thunderstorm features sporadic flashes of lightning, followed by the thunder. I automatically find myself counting the seconds between the flash and the bang. Sometimes you get that kind of fireworks-like thrill on the close ones where the boom crashes down on you in the split second immediately after the flash. Is it the electric-charge in the air or the startle reflex that makes those hairs stand up on the back of your neck when that happens?

Last night, however, was a non-stop flash and roll that went on seemingly forever. The vibrations were so fierce and persistent that I could feel them coming up from the floor and into the bed. The lighting was constant, flickering like a flourescent bulb that is going bad. If I'd had my reading glasses on I think I could have read by it, though the effort probably would have made me nauseous. Meanwhile the thunder was a continuous tympani of rolling rumbles that made it impossible to determine which bark went with which bite. Except for the one time, that is, when the sheet of light shocked the east window of our bedroom at the same time the thunder came through the north window like Kong looking for Fay Wray.

To tell you the truth, I don't know how long the storm ultimately lasted. There's just something so comforting about being snug and dry when something like that is going on — even under these extreme conditions — that I went to sleep before the show was over. Can anybody tell me how it turned out?

Posted on August 14, 2007. 5 Comments 0 Trackbacks

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Illuminating fun, faith,
family and foolishness.

“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson